Enough is enough!

Wow... I don't think I've ever worked with such pathetic musicians and singers!!

Can't sing, can't play.

I rehearsed with the singers and thought they (especially the guy on guitar) were bad enough, shit... the BASSIST!!! Oh my fuckin' God, and I found out DURING the gig!!

Well, not exactly a gig.

They said it's a tryout, so they can't pay me anything, but I can have free beers.

Hearing all the kinda crap they were doing on the bandstand, with the bassist playing every single bass note wrong, I thought "enough is enough!!".

In the end of the set, the flutist asked me if I will play with them again, I said, "I will think about it." He replied, "Doesn't sound promising". Hell yeah, it doesn't.

And the leader guy (singer, guitarist) asked me if I wanted a beer, I said, "No I gotta go."

Damn, I don't even bother to have the fuckin' beer!! I just wanna get out of the shit hole, and so I did.

None of that shit again!!

I met a Malaysian in UC Berkeley

Audition's over, I went to play badminton with Mads, since he's from Denmark, a badminton kingdom too.

After the badminton and some racket ball, we went into the locker room to stretch out, and that was then...I saw an Asian guy walking in with the t-shirt that days "Jus Do It Lah".

It looks like a Nike shirt but it has a lot of caricatures on it and the "just" was spelled as "jus", without a T. Right then I knew what that was leading to.

I went straight up to that guy and asked him, "Excuse me, may I know where you got that t-shirt?"

He was like, "Well...I'm a Malaysian..."

JUMP START!! MANGLISH!!

So it appeared that he was from Bandar Utama and has moved here since he was 13.

Then Mads came over and I told him what's the deal. So Mads was like, "Manglish? So is it something like what the Singaporeans say 'Why you so like that?'"

We said yes, but you have to add a "lah" too. HAHA...

Then this Bandar Utama dude started to say things about Manglish, like, "We talk in a more relax way than the Americans. Like in America, people would say 'John! You screwed up!' but in Malaysia it will be, 'Eh John ah, you screwed up lah...'". AHAHAHAHAA!!!

Then he said, "The thing with us Malaysians and Singaporeans is, we know we speak like that, and yet we think it's funny too, so we make fun of ourselves all the time as well."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA....

Quite an eye-opener eh, Mads?

If I leave this world by chance...

Alright, flying off to San Francisco in 9/11 doesn't sound like such a good idea, but I AM doing it.

Thinking of it, if something happened to me if I died in this flight, I would be the luckiest corpse in the world.

Why?

Because I don't have much that I left behind to worry about.

I'm not married, I don't have kids, I have almost no money in my bank account, I have no house, no loans, no car, nothing. What I have are my parents and my sister, the 3 most important people in my life. And of course, you know some friends, like my bro Ken, my gugu brothers Nicholas and Kee Yong, my high school friends Albert and Chin Keong.

But, just in case some shit really happened to me, I wanna tell all these people that I love you guys, and don't worry about me because I'm leaving this world whole-heartedly. I have done some fun stuff with music, I have met great people, and I have met some pricks too. There's no regrets in my life.

To all you musician motherfuckers in Malaysia, please keep on fighting the good fight! Do NOT go against the system, but do NOT tolerate either!

Fuck yeah bitches! If you see me back in one piece without winning the audition, it's fine. Life goes on. But if you don't see me coming back, just tell yourselves that I'm still here, it's just that I'm too busy to call or e-mail anybody.

Washington DC

The trip to Washington DC was a quick one, but nonetheless a fun one.

We took off from Chinatown at 6pm and arrived there at 11 something. I was staying in the same room with Aaron Shragge the trumpet and shakuhachi player. He's cool, looks like a zen monk with that bald head that he shaves frequently and he does raga with his voice, trumpet, and shakuhachi whenever he has time.

Oh he's a vegan too.

We went to 7-11 after we arrived to look for some food and went to bed after we bought the stuff.

The sleep was brief as we musicians had to wake up at 7am. Aaron woke up at god-knows-when and was starting to do his raga, so naturally he was the one who woke me up.

We went to Kennedy Center that's located next to Watergate. The stage people were pretty nice to us, and since we stepped in, we had a 10-hour day. That was one of my looooooooongest day in my life. Sound check, lighting check, position check, rehearsal, all ran simultaneously. Yuki did some beautiful job on the backdrop behind us, bravo for that!

We were almost dead when we got back to the hotel, but we didn't just stop there. Aaron went out to have Ethiopian dinner with Akim (the Funk Buddha), Akiko (the Funky Geisha), Kai-Ti (road manager), Rain (the video camera guy), Kak Miranti (Balinese dancer), Peter (laptop DJ), and Myla (dancer cum Akim's lady). As for me, Hypno (aka Tommy Chan, my Chinese comrade who does body-popping) called me up to chill in his room with Baba (Israel, MC and beatboxer).

We watched some stuff on the TV and on his laptop too. Apparently his laptop is connected to his home TV cable box, so he could ACTUALLY WATCH HIS SUBSCRIBED CHANNELS in his hotel room, pretty sick ain't it? We watched some Reno 911 too, which made us laugh our asses off.

Later I went on to Peter's room (after they came back) to chill with them, had a few hits which didn't do anything to me, talked some shit, had a cultural interaction with Akiko, see Akim stressing out...etc...

The next day was the performance day, we didn't have to get to Kennedy Center until 11am. So it was quite a relieve for us (why the hell do you think we can chill so long in the previous night, hm?!).

We played two shows, which was extremely well-received. Both shows were full (well, of course, it's partly because it's free...). Akim, Aaron, Angela (aerialist) and Anasma (bellydancer and body-popper) did a short strolling session outside the hall in between shows, too.

We had this really sweet and funny girl Jacqueline to be our caretaker, bringing us food and shit, running around to make sure we're fine. Later after our conversation, I got to know that she's an Indiana U grad who studied piano performance. She said she might move over to New York, having the urge to perform chamber music. I wish her good luck, and hope to see her in the City!

After our shows, Akim and Baba did a really fun (but too short) beatboxing workshop. They taught people the fundamental idea of how to beatbox and it was fun. They even invited all the audiences to dance together, there were a couple of 2-yr-old tiny kids who joined in too, it's soooo funny and yet so cute!

I was planning to stay on for the night and leave the next day. But it seemed like nobody wanted to stay long in DC, most people wanted to leave. I figured I wouldn't have time to visit places in DC the next day anyway, since the bus leaves at 11.50am. So I gave up and followed most people to go back to NYC.

All-in-all, this was a fun experience and definitely a memorable one. This is the first time ever I get to play in such a classy place like this without playing classical music. I hope more will come! And I certainly hope they will come soon...

Mark Feldman vs. Mat Maneri

Yes, they were playing together.

Two giants ---- monsters, if you will ---- shredding on the same stage.

I was almost late because of my rehearsal in Queens. When I rushed into the door, Okkyung Lee was the door person, I couldn't believe it! Haha! Kee Yong was waiting for me right there, and he (and Nicholas) paid for me. Thanks a bunch guys!

Mark and Mat started off with some beautiful dissonants and counter melodies. You can hear them complementing each other, sometimes one would be on top doing the "solo" and the other would be the background. Weaving through waves of sonority, they would occassionally land on a steady groove and start rocking some sick lines.

They played two "tunes" for the set (I dunno how to call it, it's free improv anyway), if not including the encore. Each "tune" was 30 minutes, but you wouldn't feel bored because there are different stuff coming out every time.

Mark has the same old licks that he's been using for the past few decades, but that's Mark, you can't steal that away from him. I feel that his playing is more about the fiery tone and vibrato of his instead of new ideas. But it's cool, like I said, Mark is Mark. As long as it sounds good.

As for Mat, it's all about new ideas and the coolness of his sound. He never likes to play too loud or too much, in oppose to Mark's playing. If Mark is a ball of fire, then Mat is the iceberg. Why do I say iceberg? Because his ideas are so rich that it's like they're all sample of a big iceberg.

So for the whole hour, Mark was shredding his trademark licks, while Mat swam in between his notes with constant new ideas, creating different sounds.

For the encore, Mark started blowing his crazy fast-and-furious lines for sometime while Mat was watching. When he felt it was time, Mat entered, overlapping Mark's, and Mark slowly died down and let Mat shred. Mat blew in full force for about 5 minutes, without any other complements from Mark. It was beautiful...

One thing to complain though, The Stone was hot like hell last night, because they didn't dare to switch the aircond, so that the acoustic sounds of violin and viola would not be interrupted. Everybody was sweating like mad, not to mention the performers!

Anyway, I met Brian Lindgren there in the Stone! We knew each other in Mancini '05, and it was sooo surprising that he came to see the show. I was surprised to know that he actually just arrived the same day and we bumped into each other! I hope his freelancing life in New York will be rewarding and musically satisfying. Good luck Brian!

My noisy room...

My room has 6 windows, it's very bright, I like it... wait... that was during the cold winter. Try now --- hot days. I opened some of my windows to get the air circulating, holy shit... you hear the aircond noise from the Trade Fair supermarket right next to my house, you hear electric drill on the left from a house that is being renovated, you hear cars honking like mad on the streets (and mind you, this happens in sleeping time too), garbage truck roaring, car alarms, people shouting and laughing and yelling outside...

It's noisy!!!!

But seriously, everywhere in New York is noisy, you hardly find peace in this city.

So cursin' is the only solution I have left. At least you let out your feelings.

So if you can't bear with my swear words, I'm sorry, it's your problem. :) But don't mean no bad intention.

My Burning Desire

Ahh yes...

I started to go to see shows again... of course, I only pick those that I can afford...

My burning desire for music is rising again...

I was in QC the other day and I saw this Uzbek percussionist giving masterclass for the percussion cats. Damn, his playing is PERFECT and so moving!! I was utterly amazed by that shit, and it gave me the thrill once again ------ the kind of musical thrill that I had when I first got to New York.

It's coming back again...

I feel that I wanna do some shit... Some shit that will temporarilysatisfy my endless thirst and desire for music...

Here I come motherfuckers, I'm back!!